A Topological Analysis of the Top Quark Signal and Background at Hadron Colliders

R. D. Field, Y. Kanev, and M. Tayebnejad

Institute for Fundamental Theory, Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611

Abstract

We investigate the event topology of the lvb decay mode of top-pair production in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.8 TeV. Neural networks and Fisher discriminates are used in conjunction with modified Fox-Wolfram "shape" variables to help distinguish the top-pair signal from the W+jets and b+jets background. Instead of requiring at least four jets in the event, we employ a cut on the number of calorimeter cells with transverse energy greater than some minimum. By combining these cell cuts with the event shape information, we are able to obtain a signal to background ratio of around 9 (for an ideal detector), without tagging b-quarks. B-quark tagging would, of course, further enhance the signal to background ratio. (Click for entire paper.)